This came to me today. Folks be careful what you put on your land. It seems that if we want to feed our families and not spread disease, we must get our places to produce our replacement livestock and all our own manure. This could become a serious problem folks.

Little Bit Farm

[For Information Purposes - Not NECESSARILY Endorsed by the Sender - David Lewellyn] To be added to the Republic1 email group - Republic1-subscribe@egroups.com

Medical Armageddon Being Paved With Human Feces In The Food Chain By The Idaho Observer http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20001206.htm 12-31-00

KING 5 TV (Seattle) reported Nov. 20, 2000, that thousands of tons of sewage sludge (processed human waste) that has been renamed 'biosolids' are being spread on farms across the state and other states throughout the country.

The practice is cause for concern in three specific areas with regard to contamination of the food chain.

Last month in The Observer we reported that traces of unmetabolized synthetic pharmaceutical drugs such as Prosac, antibiotics and hormones are turning up in the groundwater of Europe and North America. Levels of these substances are being detected because as much as 95 percent of synthetic drugs ingested are not metabolized and leave the body in their original forms through the urine and the feces. If prescription drugs are being detected in the water after it has been treated, we can infer that they will also be present in the ìbiosolidsî being spread all over the crops of this nation.

The presence of metals in 'biosolids' is also a concern. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Washington's Department of Ecology claim the metal content of ìbiosolidsî processed at the state-of-the-art West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle is minimal.

West Point Manager Dick Finger explains that raw sewage is digested, heated and spun at his facility until it's just right for shipment to the fields. "We make sure the products that we produce are of a very high quality," said Finger.

Government agencies also claim that the potential for the spread of transmissible disease is low because the soil upon which it is deposited will kill any remaining pathogens. "Am I concerned about significant impacts to human health and the environment? No, not based on the information I've seen so far," says state Biosolids Coordinator Kyle Dorsey.

It is well known that fully decomposed material, even if it is human waste, is beneficial to the soil as organic matter and provides plants with the nutrients needed to grow healthy and yield abundantly. Treated sewage is not fully decomposed. For government agencies to claim that ìbiosolidsî are safe is to ignore a tremendously important body of published science.

State of Washington 'biosolids' policy is likely contributing to the most ominous food supply disaster looming on the human horizon: Prions.

Prions are protein crystals that grow in grain fungi. Prions are nearly indestructible. We are being exposed to prions by eating animals such as cows that eat prion-contaminated grains. We are also being exposed to prions when we eat prion-contaminated grains.

Prions are crystals; crystals are attracted to electromagnetic energy; our brains produce electromagnetic energy; prions attracted to our brains cause lesions called encephalopathies; encephalopathies cause swelling of the brain; swelling of the brain causes dementia. Having prions in your brain also makes a person more open to suggestions that may be encoded through the transmission of TV and radio waves.

Prion disease, which was called 'kuru' when it was discovered in the in New Guinea in the early 1960s, is called 'mad cow disease' in cattle, 'whirling disease' in fish, 'scrapie' in pigs and sheep, 'wasting disease' in wild game and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in people (there is data to show that as many as 200,000 Americans who have been misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's disease may actually be suffering the ravages of prion disease).

If our food supply is already contaminated with prions, which there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that it is, then 'fertilizing' crops with human waste is going to exacerbate the situation.

'Every organism has a food supply that it depends upon for life. If the food supply is changed or contaminated, the organism must either adapt or become extinct,' Clyde Reynolds, ND, explained.

Scientists at Cornell University have serious concerns about the use of 'biosolids' as fertilizer. A team from Cornell tore apart the EPA's assumptions about the safety of the sludge.

Cornell found EPA's Cancer Risk Assessment is 'not protective,' and its enforcement and oversight is ìinadequate.î It also found that pathogens may survive in soil, especially in cool, wet conditions.

The team from Cornell believes that there is no way to protect the public from leaching and flooding that may spread live pathogens.

Despite these justifiable concerns, Washington state allows sludge to be dumped in every county. There are no state-mandated testing procedures for pathogens once 'biosolids' are dumped.

KING 5 test results

"Bob Thode spreads 22,000 wet tons of sludge over 600 acres at his Fire Mountain Farms in Lewis County. For that, he is paid more than $400,000 a year," reported KING 5 News.

Thode's neighbors are not impressed with his farming practices and equate living downstream from him to living downstream from a flushing toilet.

KING 5 Investigators decided to compare a sample of the sediment in one of Thode's ditches taken in 1994 (before 'biosolids') to one taken in the exact same place after six years of being licensed by the state to spread the sludge on his crops above the ditch.

Levels of all metals have increased drastically. KING 5 Investigators reportedly gave test results to Dorsey, who thought that pure 'biosolids' -- not ditch sediment -- was what KING 5 tested. Levels of pharmaceutical drugs were not tested, nor were the presence of prions tested.

"While our test is not conclusive, it has raised serious questions, and the state says more comprehensive testing may be needed," KING 5 concluded.

Plants absorb metals and other soil components so long as the particles are small enough. Therefore we have no idea how much metal may be ingested upon consumption of food grown in ìbiosolidî enriched soil.

"The government does not require food grown in sludge to be labeled," KING 5 concluded.

Metal Parts Per Million in 1994 v 2000:

" Posterity-you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. " John Quincy Adams

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), January 04, 2001

Answers

Little Bit, I have no idea what health hazards may come from using sludge for fertilizer, but I do know that the field our neighbors used to buy hay from for their sheep from was fertilized with sludge, and it STUNK. It couldn't possibly have been thoroughly composted. (We used to help them get in their hay every year -- but you could smell that field even driving by it on the freeway.) That is why I wouldn't let my husband use sludge on our place.

The prions thing is interesting. I didn't know that the original source for prions was grains -- another good reason for us to give them up, even if I didn't have celiac disease. Do they come from all grains, do you know, or more from certain ones? I.e., are there any that are safer than others? Are there any ways of preparing grains that would render them safe?

-- Kathleen Sanderson in NH (stonycft@worldpath.net), January 04, 2001.

Interesting. I have a couple questions for people smarter than me. 1) What about the Chinese? They've been using human dung for centuries in the orient. Sure is a heck of a lot of 'em. 2) In regards to metals, have you looked at the ingredient list on a vitamin bottle? Lots of metals listed there. What's the difference?

Not being cute, being serious. Maybe it's a matter of processing them better, but we organic types should be looking for a way to utilize poop. We extrol the virtues of manures of all kinds, are we just afraid of our own poop? John

-- John in S. IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), January 05, 2001.

I work for the City of Richmond, VA.at the Waste Treatment Plant. We have a private contractor that hauls the sludge from our plant to various locations where cattle feed is grown on these fields. At a prior location that they used to haul to, the county has banned any more dumping. Also the county that I live in, Amelia has also banned sludge from being used as fertilizer on farms for the time being while it is fought out in the courts. I myself do not believe it is safe to use as fertilizer. At treatment plants were I previously worked on the Mississippi coast, Harrison and Jackson counties, sludge was also used as fertilizer on fields were cattle feed was grown and it probably still is. Ther are many unanswered questions still as to how safe sludge is, and heavy metals also have to be considered.

-- Bruce Burdge (comfreybruce@richmond.com), January 08, 2001.

....meanwhile, health departments around this country still forbid homeowners to use greywater for ornamental gardens.....

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), January 08, 2001.

This has been going on for a long time in the northwest and elsewhere. If you want to read more things that will curl your hair look at the article "Fear in the Fields: How hazardous wastes become fertilizer" in the July 3,1997 issue of the Seattle Times. Use their search mechanism.

-- debra in ks (solid-dkn@msn.com), January 08, 2001.

Debra, the Seattle Times story, "Fear in the Fields" was the last straw for me buying produce that I didn't know who grew it. It also made me very glad that I never succumbed to buying commercial fertilizer.

The positive outcome of that story and the resulting investigations and state actions is that now in this state,(Washington) fertilizers have to have labels, just like our food, and many of these contaminated products are no longer allowed to be sold or used in our state.

Unfortunately, the damage to our soil and our bodies will take decades to repair.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), January 08, 2001.